This is gold - pure gold. Look back in time at these old school video game advertisements, and realize just how corny they have been overall. There are 2,412 TV spots indexed here for your viewing pleasure, including some very recent commercials.

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The Federal Communications Commission notified television manufacturers today that they must comply with a July 1 mandate to carry digital tuners in half of their most popular models. In addition, the commissioners also accelerated the digital tuner rollout by setting a July 1, 2007, deadline for all televisions, VCRs and DVD players to carry tuners. That means that in about two years, we can expect things to look a lot clearer on SD television sets. The problem I see is that SD, even in its digital format, still doesn’t look all that great on HDTV sets which are gaining ground in the market. Still, nice to see the FCC bumping up the date all the while.

Master Chief, accompanied by other Bungie and Microsoft employees, started to deliver scripts of the Halo movie to multiple studios for review. There has been an everlasting debate on if this movie will be any good and according to Bungie the script goes along with the whole Halo story. They have even created a Halo “Bible” for whatever studio picks up the film so they follow the Halo storyline. This should hopefully prevent the movie from turning into something like Super Mario Brothers or Street Fighter: The Movie.

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Now this I like. I knew it would take a couple of generations before companies started getting PMP’s right, with Archos leading the pack so far in my mind - that is, unless you can to throw the PSP into the mix. However, Creative has a new PMP that they are set to drop on us - the Creative Zen Vision. I am really liking the specs, most notably the size. Check it out: Supports MPEG4, WMV, Dvix, XviD, MP3, WMA, WAV, JPG, TIFF. It has a 30 GB hard drive, FM tuner, voice recorder, CF slot, 640x480 pixels 64,000 Color 3.7-inch TFT-LCD Display, and weighs 232 grams - just shy over half a pound. The only real downer here is that it doesn’t record video directly, but that interface was clumsy in previous PMP’s anyway. From the looks of things, we may see this hit the market by the end of June.

The third week of May was a sad time for many television viewers. That was the week when the major television networks announced what new shows would be hitting our screens in the fall, but more importantly, what shows had been canceled. While some of you may have been sad to see your favorite shows get the axe, many devoted fans of CBS’s “Joan of Arcadia” decided that just because their favorite show had been declared dead didn’t mean it couldn’t be revived. While many viewers who are upset about a shows’ cancellation settle for signing an online petition that probably won’t even be seen by a network executive, one viewer decided that simply would not be enough and created the website www.savejoanofarcadia.com in an effort to help give the show a second chance at life.

Now as most of us know, some people who play MMOG’s usually get sucked in and don’t leave their rooms for days, weeks, or months at a time. Well, this story isn’t game news but relates to a game and the stupidity of it makes me need to post this. One Chinese gamer has taken his online gaming world into the real world. Qiu, who is 43 years old, got really upset that a player he lent his “virtual sword” to in the game Legend of Mir 3 had sold it for $870. Rather than the usual name calling, cursing, or battling in game, Qiu decided to break into this persons house and murder them. Qiu was given a suspended death sentence, which pretty much means life term. Bring on the “Video games cause violence” debates!

After losing $1.1 billion during the first quarter of this fiscal year, GM has plans to cut 25,000 jobs by 2008. Rick Wagoner, GM’s chairman and CEO, has justified his plans by stating that it could save the company $2.5 billion a year. It will undoubtedly save the company money, but its competitiveness will not be reaffirmed by cutting jobs. Hopefully the 25,000 jobs figure will be cut, but that’s wishful thinking - good luck to GM and good luck to their employees.

Macrovision is in the business of helping content creators keep their works safe from being pirated, providing enterprise level DRM solutions. They recently did a survey on video game piracy, and found that up to 40% of gamers have pirated a game at least once. They have a few very interesting ideas going forward to protect content, such as inserting what are essentially little bugs into games that will self-recognize they have been pirated, changing the game mechanic altogether. We chat with Robert about this and more. Click here to download the MP3, or you can just subscribe to the Gear Live Podcast feed.

As you can see, this watch only has a minute hand. Upon closer glance, you will also see that the numbers aren’t in the correct place. Truth be told, I think this Gerald Charles A-Evolution watch rocks. Basically there is a windows at the top in which the number of the hour appears, while the minute hand rotates as normal. So the time on the watch at the left is about 1:46. Definitely a cool conversation piece - at least for those that like to stare at your wrist.

Check it out, you now have the ability to hide the fact that you are geek chic - and the fact that you are a male if you wish. The Lips MP3 player looks extremely similar to a stick of lipstick, but instead of fuchsia makeup, the cap covers a USB stick. Not bad.